Harry Potter and the Slayer's Spell
by Gabe1
Summary: It's Harry and co.'s sixth year at Hogwart's and new arrivals are stirring things up in a serious way. New student, New teacher, New story.
1. American Invasion

Harry Potter and the Slayer's Spell  
  
Title: Harry Potter and the Slayer's Spell (1/?)  
  
Author: Gabe  
  
Rating: overall, R (may be upped)  
  
Pairing: Ron/Hermione - Harry/Other - Tara,Spike (eventually for all of these)  
  
Improv: #7--kiss, panic, cover, ice (For HPI)  
  
Improv: #41--steel, false, letter, shiver (For BAI)  
  
Disclaimer: Ha, now I have to say I don't own two entire franchises! Well, anyway, I don't own them. I own Al, but who would want Al?  
  
Notes: Yes, we have a crossover--we also have some serious AU on the part of Buffy. Spoilers up to Goblet of Fire for Harry, and general season six for Buffy (Up to Entropy). I also want to add a bit of an apology, because for some people the first chapter's gonna be pretty boring; I'm writing this story trying to explain the HP verse and the Buffy verse, so if a person isn't familiar with one of the mythologies, they can still enjoy the story. So please, even if you aren't familiar with both, read and tell me if I did all right at explaining things. I live for the feedback, really.  
  
The Bronx, New York, USA-2003  
  
Alexandra Koto had known she was special from the day she had been born- though it seemed that the reasons were continually piling up as the years passed. She was the only daughter in a family of five children, born in the middle, which made her Daddy's Little Girl. She had been named after her Great, Great Grandfather, Al, and as such had been called simply Al for as long as she could remember. At the age of 10, she got the news of something that made her even more incredibly special; she was like her mother. She was a witch.  
  
Now, the Koto family with its five children was not particularly rich, but Al's mother was able to afford a good wand and some books for her daughter so that she could be home schooled. And for the past three years, aside from her regular schoolwork, Al had been diligently learning the magical arts. Luckily, her family was rather supportive. So despite her unusual talents of being able to levitate her brother or turn the family cat into a pincushion, her family still accepted her, just as easily as when her older brother Jeff had dyed his hair orange and black.  
  
One particular night, when Al was 13… Then, she learned of news of something that could possibly make her even more special. News that no member of her family could have possibly guessed.  
  
On that particular night, when Al was 13, she was practicing her Summoning Charm in the living room of family's apartment when the doorbell rang. "Can somebody get it?!" she called, once again attempting to beckon a pillow from the couch into her lap. Instead it zoomed over her head and nearly crashed into the television set. Once the doorbell rang a second time, and no one had appeared, Al sighed and rolled her eyes dramatically, carefully tucking away her wand in its case before climbing up to answer the door. "Fine, fine… buncha lazy bums I'm livin' wit', can't even open a friggin' door…"  
  
In all of Al's life, she could never remember having seen a man like the one standing in front of her then. He couldn't have been more than 5 foot 10, wiry and thin but able to radiate a kind of power and intimidation she didn't as of yet understand. He was clad all in black (save a blood red over shirt between a black T and a worn black leather trench coat) that contrasted starkly with pale-too pale, really-skin. His fingernails had black, chipped polish on them and his slicked back hair was a shockingly platinum color. He was lighting a cigarette when she opened the door, the bright flame outlining the sharp angles of his face, making his cheekbones all the more pronounced than they all ready were, while also filling his ice blue eyes with an unearthly kind of glow. Those bright orbs flickered up from the cigarette to burn into her, and, with his gaze never leaving her face, he flicked his lighter shut so abruptly that it made Al jump. The motion from her stirred up a Cheshire cat kind of grin from the young man.  
  
"Hello, cutie."  
  
CHAPTER ONE ~ The American Invasion  
  
Outside Hogsmeade, Scotland-2006  
  
Nestled within the highlands of Scotland, hidden from prying eyes by several means, was an ancient castle that was a well known and well respected boarding school. It was, as things always seemed to be, more than it originally appeared, for it was a boarding school for the magically inclined. It was Hogwart's School of Wizardry and Witchcraft. Young students of magic from all of Britain and Ireland came to Hogwart's to study and train, and it had produced some of the world's finest wizards and witches. In fact, even in 2006 it had a student of some reputation. For the sixth year going, Hogwart's had Harry Potter-they had the Boy Who Lived.  
  
Harry didn't look too terribly like the bold and fantastic hero he was made out to be in the magical world; at 16 he was wiry and lanky, a little bit short and a little bit pale. His dark hair was permanently unruly, no matter what he did to it, and behind round glasses was a pair of unusually bright green eyes. All in all, he was becoming a handsome young man, but there were few who could see past his scar enough to realize it. He had always had a faint outline of a lightning bolt on his forehead, or, at least, he had had it since he was one. At that age a wizard known as Lord Voldemort had been gaining power in the magical community, and had attempted to kill Harry and his family. Voldemort succeeded in taking Harry's parents from him, but when the adult wizard tried to kill the small infant with an unblockable Death curse… Well, somehow, Harry blocked it. The spell backfired, leaving Voldemort in a state between death and life, with no body and no end to his suffering. The dark wizard disappeared into the world, biding his time and waiting to gain strength while Harry grew up among normal human beings-- among Muggles, more specifically, the Dursleys'.  
  
The Dursley's were a stingy, strictly Muggle family with no love for Harry and even less for magic. In fact, they had lied about how Harry's parents had died and had never told him about his magical background - they had hoped that by ignoring the obvious, that Harry was going to be a wizard like his father before him, then it simply wouldn't come to pass. However, on Harry's eleventh birthday those at Hogwart's made sure (after several wild attempts to do so involving an awfully large amounts of letters) that Harry learned of his ability, and his family, and his invitation to join the school and learn. Without any real power to forbid him, the Dursley's allowed it, and had allowed it for the past five years, although for the summer holiday Harry was always forced to return to their home on 4 Privet Drive. Once, in his third year at Hogwart's, Harry had believed himself free of the Dursley's because of the appearence of his GodFather, Sirius Black. Unfortunately, Sirius was an outlaw--he had escaped from prison after being wrongfully tried and convicted of selling out Harry's parents to Lord Voldemort, and of murdering a large group of muggles in the process. So obviously he could not provide Harry with a proper home, despite how much he may have wanted to. For now, Sirius had settled on watching out for Harry from a distance, using his ability to transform into an animal (a large, black dog) to visit the young wizard when he could manage. However, because of present circumstances, these visits had grown less frequent. At the end of Harry's fourth year, Voldemort found a way to give himself a body again, with the help of his followers, the Death Eaters, and Harry's own blood. Since then, members of Hogwarts and several individual witches and wizards had been working tirelessly to hunt down Voldemort before he could gain too much power--the Ministry of Magic, the strongest force to fight Voldemort's evil, had yet to acknowledge the wizard's return.  
  
Presently, on September 1st, 2006, none of this was on Harry's mind. This evening was the annual Banquet that signalled the beginning of a new school year, and there were only two things on that he was thinking about, much like the rest of the school: Who would be the new Defense Against the Dark Arts Teacher, and was this rumor of an American foreign exchange student true?  
  
For every year that Harry had been in Hogwarts, a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher had had to be found. Whether they turned out to be Voldemort's lackeys, hopelessly inadequate, or forced out by unjustified parental fears, the teachers would come and go within the span of a year. In Harry's fifth year, Dumbledore, the Headmaster of Hogwarts, had taken up the position again, being as he had had the job when he was younger. The strain of running the school and of teaching Defense, however, had proven to be too much, and after the end of the year, Dumbledore had started looking for a new teacher.  
  
At the moment, when Harry looked up at the head table to where Dumbledore was sitting, the young wizard had to admit the Headmaster looked much more like his old self again. Tall and forceful, yet very grandfatherly, Dumbledore had the kind of smile that made children light up without really knowing why. He was really rather a complete opposite of the man sitting to his right: Professor Snape. Harry unconsciously shivered a bit when he looked at the dreaded Potions teacher. Snape hated Harry, hated Gryffindors, and hated... Well, there was very little the man didn't seem to hate. And presently Snape was looking like his usual, hating everything self, with a bit of exhaustion thrown in for good measure. Since the end of Harry's fourth year, Snape had been pulling strings as a double agent, being a teacher at Hogwarts and pretending to still be a Death Eater. Harry still hated the wizard, but he had grown to have a bit of a begruding respect for the man.  
  
Harry's gaze finally wandered over to the person sitting next to Snape, and he suddenly straightened up at the Gryffindor table. A few minutes ago, the seat had been empty, but now it was filled with a surprisingly young woman Harry didn't recognize--the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor had arrived.  
  
"Psst--Ron. Look." Harry gently nudged his best friend, Ron Weasley, in the ribs, getting the fellow sixth year's attention. Ron had been speaking with Hermione Granger, his and Harry's other best friend, and going rather starry eyed, if you asked Harry. It had been pretty obvious to him that Ron and Hermione had more than a friendship brewing in their verbal battles, but he had been content to watch them from afar and smirk.  
  
Ron started slightly from his spot next to Harry, almost as if just waking up before his gaze turned up to the head table and he caught sight of the new teacher. "Bloody hell..." the young redhead said under his breath, surprise evident in his voice. Harry had to admit, he agreed with the assessment. The teacher couldn't have been older than her late twenties, with dark blonde hair that hung down around her freely in soft waves, covering her simple but elegant maroon robes. Dark, warm eyes seemed to smile at you, though a tad bit sadly. She had a gentle, old fashioned kind of beauty about her that was quite pleasing to the eye.  
  
Harry turned his head slightly, watching Hermione's reaction carefully, silently wondering if her feathers would be ruffled at Ron's staring. 'Not that they've even kissed', Harry thought with a bit of an internal chuckle as he finally decided she wasn't ruffled, for she was looking intently as the new teacher as well.  
  
"She must be incredibly good, to be brought in to teach so young," Hermione stated, sounding just a tad wistful with the thought.  
  
"That or Dumbledore's incredibly desperate for a professor," Harry replied after a moment--though he really didn't believe that of Dumbledore--with his voice slightly lowered. The first years were entering the Great Hall now, obviously in awe of the room with it's four great tables, with floating candles all around, and it's enchanted ceiling which reflected the night sky. And, of course, the Sorting Hat. There were four houses in the school--Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin--which were a kind of mini family for the school term. You ate, slept, and had classes with your house, while competing against the other houses. Generally though, people between houses were usually quite friendly with one another; for instance, Harry's old crush, and briefly, his girlfriend the previous year, Cho Chang, was in Ravenclaw.  
  
"There's no one older than a first year up there," Ron commented as the sorting ritual dragged on. "Guess that exchange student rumor was a sham."  
  
Harry looked over at the line of waiting students, remembering how panicked and terrified he and his friends had been when they had been sorted, and smiled slightly at the memory. "Well, if you were a sixth year, would you want to go up there and be sorted like all the firsts?" he finally said in way of reply, absently pushing his round glasses up his nose. "Perhaps Dumbledore thought it'd be embarrassing and will have them sorted in private."  
  
"Well, sorting is almsot over, and once it is, Dumbledore will make his speech, like always," Hermion pointed out, lightly pushing back her somewhat frazzled looking mane of brown hair. "I'm sure he'll tell us then if an American is coming."  
  
As predicted, as soon as the last of the first years had joined their table, Professor Dumbledore stood up from his chair, gazing at the students from his half moon spectles with a smile on his face. He greeted the first years like he always did, and gave out the usual warnings and announcements- -no one to enter the Forbidden Forest, only third years and up can travel to Hogsmeade, etc--but afterwards, he paused, and turned slightly to his right.  
  
"As I am sure you all have been able to guess, we have a new professor amongst us. She is a tad young, and from America, but mind you she has incredible experience and knowledge, and we are quite pleased to have her be able to join us. Professor Tara MacClay will be your Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher."  
  
At the sound of her name, the new teacher waved slightly, looking rather nervous under the attention being brought to her. Not that Harry blamed her- -she did look to be quite, not a tad, young and with people like Draco Malfoy in Slytherin, she could have some troudlbe gaining respect due to her age.  
  
"And--in order to squash any wild rumors before they grow bigger than this castle," Dumbledore continued, gathering a small chuckle from the tables of students. "I will inform you that, yes, we do have an exchange student that will be joining us. I am afraid she is not with us at the moment, I have been informed she is having a bit of trouble with her transportation, but she is a 6th year student, and comes to us from New York. Whosever house she ends up belonging to, I expect the whole of the house to give her quite a warm welcome, and help her to feel as if this were her own home." Harry couldn't quite figure out why, but as he listened to the last of Dumbledore's speech, he was pretty sure there was a bit of a forceful, steely note in the older man's voice. Did Dumbledore expect trouble with the new student?  
  
Almost as soon as this registered in Harry's mind, Dumbledore was concluding his speech, and the tables were filling with food. Famished, all the students gladly dug into the feast as soon as it appeared.  
  
"So an American girl really is coming here," Ron said after pouring himself a glass of pumpkin juice. "Lord, I hope she ends up in Gryffindor, don't you?" he added, elbowing Harry slightly and exchanging a knowing look with his friend.  
  
This, unlike Ron's oogling of the new teacher, did seem to ruffle Hermione's feathers. "Really, Ron," she said, glaring slightly from across the table. "Just because she's from New York instead of Manchester doesn't mean she'll be any different from us, excluding the accent."  
  
"Hermione's right," Harry decided, still busily piling food onto his plate. "Afterall, how strange can Americans be?" 


	2. Just How Strange...

Little Author Type Notes: To those that had all ready reviewed this story, I thank you so much! Your words have been incredibly encouraging for me to continue writing this story, and I really hope you end up liking what you read. Sorry that it's taking a while to update, works in progress are icky like that. The hugest thanks in the world to Mabel Weasley, who's been incredibly patient and an all around wonderful Beta to me. To those who are wondering, Spike and Tara both will be playing decent sized parts, and will be showing up again in chapter 3. And, since it was brought to my attention- give the story another chapter or two before labeling Al a Mary Sue, kay?  
  
  
  
CHAPTER TWO ~ Just How Strange...  
  
Since the moment the students woke up on the first day of school, there had been talk of little else except the new American student. Every house was hoping for the student to be sorted into their company, and all through breakfast heads turned and eyes darted to the main doors at the slightest sound. But no new sixth year appeared for breakfast.  
  
Harry, Ron and Hermione all took seats near the back in Professor McGonagall's Transfiguration class (their first of the term) and prepared for class to begin like all the other students, pulling out their quills and books--and, naturally, looking towards the door.  
  
"Well, we have a fifty fifty chance of seeing her first, with Ravenclaw in the class too," Ron stated, almost spilling his inkwell as he attempted to keep his eyes glued to the door while unpacking his bag. Luckily, Hermione reached over to catch it, which got Ron's attention.  
  
"Really, Ron, she's just a new girl," Hermione chastised, though her gaze darted to the door every once and a while too. "You don't see Harry going to pieces over the idea of a new girl."  
  
As if right on cue, Harry accidentally tipped his bag over on his desk in order to get a better look at the door, spilling several rolls of summer homework parchment on the ground. From the other side of the room a few of the Ravenclaws snickered, and Harry could feel his cheeks burning as he bent down to pick them up.  
  
Ron smirked slightly before turning to Hermione, who was also looking just a tad bit embarrassed. "What was that about Harry being Mr. Cool, hmm?"  
  
Hermione looked about ready to snap some sort of reply out when Professor McGonagall entered the classroom in her emerald robes and pointed hat, her square spectacles firmly in place as she marched to the front of the classroom. She was a strict, but fair professor at Hogwarts, and the Head of Gryffindor House. For the most part, students liked her.  
  
All the class reluctantly went quiet and turned their attention to the Professor, half-heartedly hoping she would be making an announcement about the new student. But, as they all really expected, she did nothing of the sort. The new term had started, and no American was present in that classroom.  
  
"Today we're going to be getting right to work, seeing as how I am sure all of you have completed your summer assignments," Professor McGonagall stated as she plucked her hat off her head and hung it up next to the blackboard. "Which should be all the research you need for this particular assignment. Put away your quills and take out your wands, I want to see you all attempting to make your texts invisible. I don't expect you to get it right the first try, but they'd all better have become transparent once before this class is over. Inanimate objects are terribly easy to take color from compared to living beings."  
  
With a few stifled groans, the whole of the class began to work on the present assignment. Naturally, Hermione's book became invisible before her third try, and McGonagall came by to check the young prefect's name off her list. Ron managed to get his book to a misty color, as if it were a ghost book, but couldn't do any better than that, no matter what kind of cajoling (or cursing) he did at it. At first Harry seemed to be having even worse trouble, for instead of becoming invisible, his book changed into a violent purple. Slightly panicked, and ignoring Ron's sniggering, he rapidly repeated the spell and watched his book with relief as it appeared to fade away.  
  
It was about that time that Parvati Patil accidentally turned Lavender Brown invisible, which was causing some panic among all the class. Lavender, though she couldn't be seen, sounded pretty miffed about the entire event, while Parvati tried to convince McGonagall that Gryffindor deserved to be awarded points since she had managed to perform a much more difficult version of the spell than had been expected of her. Harry was watching this with some amusement, silently wondering whether the Professor's strictness or kindness would win out, when he heard the back door to the classroom open. He blinked and glanced around--no one else seemed to have noticed the creaking, they were all focused on McGonagall trying to take away Lavender's transparency. For a moment he believed it had just been his imagination, when he heard a bit of a chuckle from behind him.  
  
Dumbledore was standing quietly in the back of the class, watching the events unfold and looking thoroughly amused by the entire matter. Then again, Dumbledore often was just as amused about things around the school as students were. Surely nothing's wrong, Harry silently mused while McGonagall quieted the class for Dumbledore. The Headmaster wouldn't have just stood and watched like that if anything was wrong, right?  
  
"Professor," Dumbledore greeted her amiably once the class had fallen into a respectful silence. "I do hate to disrupt you, seeing as how you're in the middle of such a lively lesson--" Harry saw a familiar twinkle in the Headmaster's eye at that statement. "--But our new student just now has gotten properly settled, and it is high time she joined her House."  
  
The spark and buzz swept along the room in a matter of a second, and students burst out in excited whispers despite the deeply respected Headmaster's presence. Of course, one stiff clearing of the throat by McGonagall was enough to silence the students, but not before Ron got out an excited "She's a Gryffindor, I know it!" to Harry and Hermione.  
  
"Professor McGonagall. Sixth years. I would like to introduce you to Miss Al Koto, of New York--of Gryffindor House," Dumbledore announced solemnly, though when he did give the Gryffindors a private smile.  
  
Harry heard the collective gasp around the room when the young woman--who, for some odd reason, had a man's name--scrambled into the room, still pulling her black robes over the rest of her school uniform. He had... Well... Simply never seen anyone (or anything) like her. Everything from the top of her head to the bottom of her feet was utterly and completely new to him. She wasn't wearing the usual school shoes, but a pair of black combat boots that laced up to her calf. Up her legs, disappearing under her pleated, plaid skirt (that somehow looked shorter on her than it did on other girls) was a pair of black fishnet tights. Before she had pulled on her robes properly, Harry had seen her school shirt had the first few buttons undone and her tie was hanging down low and loose. Her fingernails had bright nailpolish of all colors painted on, and at least one ring was practically on every finger, not to mention a set of all kinds of bracelets disappeared up the left sleeve of her robes. Then there was her face. Full lips painted a wild, glossy, blueish color that matched the glittery makeup around her deep blue eyes. A silver barbell pierced her right brow, and rows of earrings make their way up both her ears. But, by far, the thing that stood out the most was her hair. Shoulder length with only a few strands that could be called bangs, with a jagged side part, the blonde locks were streaked with a bright, shimmering purple. It reminded Harry of the color his book had been only minutes before.  
  
Harry was sure all of the class was going to label this newcomer the biggest freak in all of Hogwarts history, and in a bit of a way he almost couldn't disagree--but then the new girl flashed the room a smile. It was warm and heartfelt and entirely infectious, like a ray of sunshine on a cold winter's day. Thoughts of 'freak' disappeared from Harry's mind, replaced more or less by 'strangely pretty'.  
  
"Cor, will you look at that..." Harry was jerked out of his thoughts by Ron's hushed comment, and he looked over to his red-headed friend with a "what do you mean?" kind of expression. "That's the kind of a girl I don't think they make in England."  
  
Hermione, Harry noticed, couldn't look less pleased by Ron's statement, but she didn't get a chance to say much before Al spoke up to the teachers.  
  
"Sorry 'bout that--stairs kin'a switched up on me back there," she said, a blaring Bronx accent in her words that the rest of the students were quite unaccustomed to. "Uhh--where should I park?"  
  
McGonagall straightened up slightly, fixing the new student with a piercing gaze. "Pardon?"  
  
Al, for her part, didn't seem too phased by the Professor's stare. "Park? Y'know--where I should sit?" she explained, picking up the large canvas side bag she had dropped to her feet. Harry looked at it more closely and saw dozens of pin on buttons ran up the shoulder strap, and the material appeared to have writing on it.  
  
"Ah. Yes, of course. You may take the empty seat here--" Before McGonagall could complete her sentence, Lavender's voice practically wailed in protest, and the professor started with the realization that she had forgotten one of her students was there. Several students, Harry and Ron included, started to chuckle behind their hands. "Oh, pardon me. Koto, take a seat... in the back. Next to Potter."  
  
At this news Harry froze, his chuckles dying in his throat. As a general rule, he didn't do too well at communicating to girls that he thought were particularly pretty. The ones that made the familiar little lurch in his stomach were the ones he always embarrassed himself in front of, and right now his stomach was doing full on somersaults. He didn't think this would be turning out in his favor at all.  
  
Al's bag hit her desk with a slight thump before she fell into her seat-- or, more appropriately, she vaulted over the back of the chair to sit down in it while Professor McGonagall tended to Lavender. She let out a bit of a sigh, as if satisfied with herself, before looking over at Harry and sending him one of her infectious smiles. Harry felt his defense shyness melt some, and he smiled back without blushing.  
  
"Hi," she said, keeping her voice soft to not draw attention to herself from the teacher. "I think ya kin'a know my name... Your...?"  
  
Harry blinked in surprise at the question. Then blinked again when he realized the quizzical expression on Al's face was genuine. "Why--I'm Harry Potter," he finally told her.  
  
"Harry Potter, huh?" Al mumbled, looking him over for a long moment, as if she was struggling to remember where she had heard the name before. Finally she snapped her fingers, her face lighting up. "Your that killa Seeka I keep hearin' 'bout, right?"  
  
For a moment, Harry couldn't do anything but look absolutely dumbstruck. She didn't know who he was? How was that possible? Had she been living under a bleeding rock?  
  
Ron had apparently realized that Harry was going to be of little help when it came to answering her question, and soon piped up from his place on the other side of the young wizard. "That'd be him all right. Since he refuses to brag, I'll do it for him. I'm Ron Weasley, by the by, and this here is Hermione Granger." Ron paused as Al nodded a greeting to them both, leaning over her table slightly to get a better look at the pair. "And yes, Harry is that Seeker-he's our Quidditch captain this year. And he's all ready had two professional teams want to sign him up after graduation"  
  
Al's gaze switched back to Harry at that statement, an impressed look on her face that made him squirm slightly in his seat. "Well.... I turned them down..." he mumbled somewhat lamely.  
  
"Well, hot damn," Al said, the faintest amount of awe in her voice. "So your the one I gotta suck up ta ta get a spot on the team?"  
  
"You fly?" Harry inquired, sounding, if nothing else, hopeful. He didn't honestly believe he'd have a thing in common with a girl like this. "You like to fly?"  
  
Al just grinned a crooked grin, her fingers absently sliding through her hair. "Ya kiddin'? I'd sneak out in the middle a the night an' go ta Central Park ta zoom 'round in. 'Course, goin' inta a park full a trees in the middle a the night ain't exactly too smart, I kept whackin' myself inta branches left an' right at first--"  
  
"Ahem--Miss Koto?" McGonagall's voice cut through the classroom, cutting through any form of tiny chatter. Lavender, now able to be seen, and the rest of the class had begun to take notes on the teacher's lecture. "I do realize you have been home schooled for the extent of your magical education, but I am certain you understand the basics of respect for any person. Is there something you wanted to share with this class?"  
  
"Uhh..." Al looked up at the teacher, an expression of innocence painted on her face. "I was just illustratin' how well my voice carries considerin' my Gawd awful accent, an' how tryin' ta talk durin' class neva works for me, so I'll neva do it?"  
  
Professor McGonagall's lips twitched in a funny sort of way--only the students that knew her best would realize it was her fighting the urge to smile. "That will do, Koto. Now, as I was saying, the longer things are left in a state of invisibility, the harder it becomes to alter their state back to its original form. This is especially dangerous to living beings, which is why we usually enchant objects to put up a mask of invisibility, instead of simply transfiguring into that state..."  
  
"If you want to talk more," Harry mumbled under his breath, leaning over slightly to Al as they took notes. "You can find us during lunch."  
  
Al looked up from where she was pretending to write, her lips spreading into another heart-warming smile. Harry could feel himself turning into a puddle because of it. "I'll find yas," she assured him quietly, before turning back to the lesson.  
  
Harry sat back in his seat, a small smile of his own coming to his lips. Sixth year looked like it was going to shape up rather nicely, really.  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
"Hermione doesn't like her." Ron walked down the winding corridors of Hogwarts between his two friends, wading with the crowds of students towards the Great Hall for lunch. They had lost Al outside of Transfiguration, but she had told Harry she would talk to him during lunch, after all.  
  
"I said nothing of the sort!" Hermione protested from Ron's left, tossing her frazzled hair behind her and subconsciously showing off her prefect's badge. "Just because I'm not doing cartwheels over her doesn't mean that I don't like her."  
  
Harry made a non-committal noise as his addition to the discussion while the trio walked into the Great Hall. Once they entered he lost track of the conversation for looking for Al, only hearing Ron say something about "Harry" and "cartwheels" before his friend elbowed him in the ribs. Harry stumbled from the action, snapping his attention back onto the conversation.  
  
"What are you on about?" Harry demanded as they took their seats. His comment was enough to make Ron laugh and Hermione roll her eyes--and after five years, Harry knew enough to realize his ignorance had just proven whatever kind of a point Ron was trying to make.  
  
The trio had barely taken a seat and filled their plates before a sudden, short burst of noise came into the Hall. They all shared a look with one another before craning their heads as an unconscious hush fell over the groups of students--everyone else must have gotten their first look at Al.  
  
The petite (she was only 5 foot 2) punk of a girl was standing just inside the hall, looking rather relaxed despite the entire school's eyes on her. After a moment of tense silence, Ron and Harry exchanged knowing looks and promptly leapt to their feet for her, hooting and clapping as though she were a first year that had just been sorted into their house. With a bit of a collective laugh, the rest of the Gryffindor table soon followed the example, and by the time Al made it over to Harry, she had been greeting countless Gryffindors with that infectious grin of hers. And she was quick to turn it on Harry, Ron and Hermione once she reached them.  
  
"Really friendly group, ya Gryffindor types," Al commented, sounding slightly breathless as she sat down on the wooden bench beside Harry, and across from Ron and Hermione. She peeled the strap of her back over her head in order to place her bag on the floor before she caught sight of all the food on the table. "Uhh--I'm guessin' ya ain't got pizza floatin' 'round in heres anywhere, huh?"  
  
Harry's brows furrowed slightly as he looked at Al over the rim of his goblet. "Something wrong?"  
  
Al shook her head and then shrugged her shoulders. "I dunno--is not knowin' what a thing on this table is a prob?"  
  
From across the table, Ron chuckled. "Come on now, it's not all that bad. Hunt a little, you'll find something that resembles food to an American... Is your food really that different?"  
  
"Well, at school, yeah," Al replied, standing up and craning her head down the table. She finally spotted a sandwich--sandwiches she could apparently handle--and pulled it down to her plate. "We had a sub line, a pizza line an' a chicken line. I mean, not too hard on the brain cells. Course, that was crappy public school... Which ya guys prolly dun even gotta clue 'bout, right?"  
  
"I'm afraid your American ways do not resemble Earth ways," Ron intoned with a mock solemnness that earned a few chuckles. "Neither does your hair."  
  
At that, Al grinned again happily. "Really? Thanks, that's what I was goin' for."  
  
"Why don't you tell us more about yourself, Al?" Hermione interjected smoothly in a small break in conversation. "I've never heard of Hogwarts taking exchange students like this, I'm interested as to how you got here."  
  
"It's pretty borin', really. All right, 'bout me. Umm--my real name's Alexandra, but I'm gonna beg yas ta not call me that. I'm the middle child in a family a five, straight from the Bronx in New York. My ma's a witch, my pop's not, an' somehow I'm the only kid in the family ta get ta work the mojo. Ma's been teachin' me at home while I went ta Muggle school, 'til a family friend of the witchy kind found out. She thought I had a lotta talent, an' should go ta an official school. She pulled lotsa strings, cut through lotsa red tape, an' here I am." Al shrugged as she took a sip of her pumpkin juice, and made a bit of a surprised face at the taste. "Err- so, Harry, your Quidditch Captain, right?"  
  
Harry chuckled rather weakly. "So they tell me-we're holding try-outs next week to fill the team roster, since you seem interested."  
  
"I'm very interested," Al agreed with a grin. "What positions do ya need?"  
  
"From a girl like you, I'm sure Harry will want all kinds of positions," Ron interjected with a knowing smirk.  
  
Harry could feel his face flaming up at the innuendo, but his embarrassment was soon replaced with surprise from Al's response. "Somebody all ready fantasizin', hmm?" she practically purred, sending Ron a look that made the Weasley choke on his pie. The trio of friends all looked at one another with various states of shock on their faces.  
  
"God bless America," Ron finally said wistfully, earning a stiff smack on the shoulder from Hermione.  
  
Al laughed from across the table. "Sorry, couldn't resist. Now, really, whaddya need?"  
  
Harry snapped out of the strange sort of daze he had fallen into, forcing his thoughts onto Quidditch and away from the idea of fantasizing. "Err-oh. We need a Beater, Ron's all ready one, and another Chaser."  
  
"Sweet-I'm there," Al assured him with a nod. She glanced at her wristwatch, and even though her lunch only appeared half eaten, she stood up from the table. "Whoops-I gotta bounce, if I wanna get ta Potions on time. Sorry, Dumbledore wanted ta talk ta me 'bout sumpin, told him I'd get wit' him durin' lunch."  
  
"Oh, well, do you need someone to show you how to get there? Because if so, Harry could do it." Ron raised a brow at his friend to keep the brunette from protesting. "He's had to go see Dumbledore loads of times."  
  
"Really? Huh-didn't picture yas as a rabble rousa," Al commented, slinging her bag on her shoulder. Harry promptly glared at Ron for the supposed "help" but Al was laughing again. "S'okay, really. I think I can find my way. Save me a seat in Potions though?"  
  
"Oh, of course," Harry replied, though only after he was prompted by Hermione discreetly kicking his shin under the table.  
  
Al flashed another dazzling smile at the trio. "Great-thanks a lot," she said, waving slightly before hurrying from the Great Hall.  
  
Across the table from Harry, Hermione and Ron were busy nodding in agreement to a silent proclamation. When Harry finally came out of his daze, and prodded the pair about it, it was Hermione that voiced their opinion.  
  
"Harry. You got it rather bad for her, I'm afraid."  
  
((Next Chapter: The Final Newcomer-we finally get Spike, woohoo!)) 


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